Merry Christmas, Keith
by ChristineBH
Summary: Keith is 18 now. Finally too old to sit awkwardly among foster families who knew each other in and out but barely knew his name. It's just hard to hear about others celebrating Christmas when all Keith has is the 5 different flavored cup noddles he bought himself in preperation for the day, but he doesn't need anyone to have a great Christmas. No one at all... Or maybe he's just fo


Christmas has been a time for cheer and unity for a long time. Longer than anyone had been alive and would be for longer than anyone would live.

Everyone in the quiet town knew this and everyone in the less quiet school knew it more intimately. Keith too knew it despite what others would say when they saw his neutral face that Lance had described as a resting-bitching-face more than once.

It would be greater than the other years. For once, he wasn't in a foster family that he had known for less than half a year and despite what people thought of the foster system, he wasn't thrown out into the world with no safety net as soon as he turned 18. That would happen when he turned 21.

But for now he got money to pay for his small studio apartment and the food on his plate and would have until he graduated high school. It was fine. Keith barely even had to remind himself of that.

It was great to hear his classmates talk about seeing their families. It was great to hear them complain about having to buy presents for all their siblings and parents, maybe even their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. It was more than fine when Lance complained that he felt like a cliché because he gave two of his nieces Disney princess dolls. Keith wasn't a 3 year old girl but if he was, he would probably have found a Rapunzel or Merida doll a great gift.

It didn't even hurt when they talked about being with family members they hadn't seen in a very long time, or according to Lance "100 years".

They could cry over their families all they wanted, Keith had a cup noodle to attend to and he wasn't the type to leave things like that behind.

Keith thought about skipping school the last day before the Christmas holiday. Fridays were often hard to get through with everyone excited for the coming weekend and having to sit with everyone excited for Christmas being few days away would be hell. Well, sitting with the ones who wasn't already half across the country with family before the big day that is.

He didn't end up skipping and luckily only got a minor headache from trying to learn just anything that day that wasn't unkind thoughts about his classmates. Keith even had strength to remind himself that the day had been much better than the year before when the last day of school before the holiday had been December 23.

"I'll write to you all when I've opened my presents," Lance promised as puffed out his chest if he was making a great sacrifice.

"Yeah, yeah, I can't wait to hear what your mommy and daddy is getting for their precious goldling," Pidge spat out.

"Don't be jelly, I'm sure everyone has something for the littelist little Pidge," Lance said and made disgusting kissing noises in Pidge's direction.

Pidge's wrinkled nose and judging look in her eyes couldn't have personified Keith's inner thoughts any better than they already were.

Hunk and Keith looked at Pidge glaring at Lance for only a few seconds before Hunk sighed and shook his head. "Are you really doing this again? As much as I like to comfort whoever is the most offended, I don't have time for that today."

"I do not need comforting ever!" Pidge declared while Lance cried out about Hunk not loving him. Probably. Keith really didn't spend enough time with anyone to understand any form of talking while crying even if it was so fake that there wasn't even a single crocodile tear in sight.

Keith looked up at Hunk with curious and slightly widened eyes with the unasked question of where Hunk was going. Hunk discarded of his faintly annoyed demeanor as soon as he looked away from Lance and Pidge.

"My mom and I agreed to make Christmas cookies today and she will be off work in-," Hunk looked at his phone, "about 30 minutes."

"Okay, bye," Keith mumbled. He wished his social skills were better but comforted himself with the knowledge that Hunk didn't take it as much as a dismissal as a total stranger would have.

Pidge sighed "I'll head off too. Crowded bus here I come," she cheered unenthusiastically with a raised hand and a dead look in her eyes.

Lance's phone beeped. "That's probably my brother picking me up."

"Of course he's picking you up on his 60 mile drive home from college, you spoiled brat," Pidge grunted before turning around and walking towards the bus stop.

"I know you love me too," Lance called after her and blew her a kiss so loudly that Keith almost suspected it to be heard all the way to the bus stop.

Lance turned his eyes towards Keith and Keith turned his eyes away from Lance just to figure out that Hunk had left somewhere between Keith sending him off and Pidge leaving.

"I'll write you later, okay?" Lance asked or said. Keith wasn't 100% sure which one and he didn't know what the indication would be to either of those options.

"Okay," Keith settled on as he gave a little nod for good measure.

The corners of Lance's mouth rose and he opened his mouth when his phone beeped again.

"Yeah, yeah, Patrick, I'm coming," Lance groaned even though his brother couldn't hear it. "See ya, Keith," Lance said and gave a little salute as he walked away.

"Bye, Lance," Keith mumbled and looked after Lance. Watching those long legs as if hypnotized. They were clad in normal, blue jeans that neither tried to emphasize nor hide anything but Keith still found the sight pleasing.

* * *

Lance did write Keith later that day. Well, he wrote a group text to Keith, Pidge and Hunk telling everyone that he came come to cookies and hot coco and that the kids of his siblings were all getting big. Keith had no idea how that boy could sound both 5 and 50 in a text message especially without it seeming the least bit odd.

Keith didn't know if he should answer a message like that but then his phone dinged as Pidge and Hunk gave lackluster answers only one step above ' _k_ '. Keith wasn't really as close to them as they were to each other and he honestly was a little surprised that they went straight from occasionally talking to him to suddenly talking to him every day and writing to him when the holiday started.

 _Okay_ , he sent back to Lance. He wasn't even close to impressed over his own social skills but that answer would just have to do.

Keith moved over to his bed and plugged his computer in. He didn't have anything else to do unless one counted doing holiday homework, and no one counted that as a reasonable thing on the last day of school. He couldn't even write to Shiro as Shiro said he and Allura would be in a plane until right before dinnertime and neither Shiro nor Keith wanted to pay the high price of texting midair so Shiro. Besides, Shiro was probably one of those people who didn't settle on airplane mode and instead turned their phone off.

Keiht's phone made another sound and he moved it up in front of his still turned off computer screen.

 _so what's you doing?_ Lance had written back to all of them.

 _Baking,_ Hunk answered. The few times Keith had received messages from Hunk they had been much longer but he could understand why Hunk would only send one word if he was about to get his hands dirty in some dough.

 _Wrapping 1000 presents,_ Pidge wrote and continued less than a second later, _Matt can't wrap presents for shit_ ….

Keith didn't know if he should answer but found out as soon as Lance sent another present

 _what about you keith,_ Lance wrote with no capital letters or question marks.

 _On my computer,_ Keith answered even though it wasn't completely true when the computer wasn't turned on.

 _familys not home yet?_ Lance questioned

 _No,_ Keith wrote and pretended that there had been no 'yet' so he wouldn't be a liar.

 _When will they be home?_ Pidge asked.

 _It's just me,_ Keith sent back to them and regretted it instantly.

 _whats your adress?_ The next message asked.

Keith didn't know why Lance wanted to know that. It didn't seem like a logical time to ask things like that. Especially out of the blue.

 _!,_ Lance wrote after a couple of minutes and Keith just sighed and sent his address to him.

 _youre going to my house at x-mas. i'm picking you up at 5-ish and you have no say in t,_ Lance wrote as soon as the address had been sent.

Keith knew that Lance would listen if he really didn't want him to come get him but Keith couldn't find the will to protest so he wrote a simple _okay_ and left it at that.

* * *

Keith looked around the room and saw a lot more faces than he expected. He hadn't seen most of the faces before but Lance's siblings looked really similar to him so that counted as him knowing them just so he didn't stand in a room with only one person he knew.

Besides all the siblings there were Lance's mother who only had sprinkled a little over her children's appearance, his father that all the siblings looked really similar to, nephews and nieces with varying appearances despite all being under 7 years old, brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, no grandparent, and…

"Coran?" Keith exclaimed in surprise.

"Ah, Keith, I didn't expect to see you here," the man in question answered.

Keith sent him a wide-eyed look. "Same here."

Lance smacked his hand on Keith's shoulder so hard that it stung a little. "Don't be a dick, Keith, my mom's allowed to invite friends too."

"Language, Lance!" Lance's mother scolded.

"I'm not allowed to swear in my own goddamn house when there's any niblings," Lance muttered to himself but it still awoke a smile in Keith.

"Are you swearing in front of my children, Lance, after mamá told you not to?" A beautiful woman in her late twenties scolded. If she wasn't sitting with a small toddler in her lap and next to a man around her own age with a slightly bigger toddler, then Keith would have never suspected that she was a mother from simply how much effort he could imagine had went into her whole appearance. Her hair was long and silky with either very well-done highlights or even better genetics and blue eyes that shone on her tan face with expertly done make-up.

"No, of course not, Cari," Lance answered innocently but 'Cari' sent him a look that told everyone in the room that she didn't believe him.

"Oh, by the way, Keith," Lance said as he took a step so he was next to Keith. "You won't remember it, but here's the rundown of names."

Lance pointed from one end to the other but Keith only remembered that Lance's mother was named Graciela but called Grace, he put a face to Patrick's name, he learned that Cari was actually named Caridad and that one of the nieces was called Elena but he couldn't remember who when the rundown of names were over.

Keith pulled Lance's sleeve slightly before he had a chance to leave. "Um, I don't know if it's rude to ask, but, like, why-why is-"

"Oh, Caridad and Miguel were born in Cuba and the rest of us were born here," Lance answered before Keith could stutter his question out.

* * *

Conversation went smoothly for everyone who wasn't Keith or the infant on Lance's eldest brother's arm. Keith had tried at first but just too overwhelmed with having to either try hard to catch just one person's attention or having at least four people looking at him. It didn't help that 7 out of 11, if Keith's math were right, was or would soon be parents and therefore were in a completely different stage of their lives than Keith was.

The young woman next to Keith were one of Lance's sisters. She were pretty in Keith's homosexual option with her soft features that complimented her brown hair and eyes.

"So you're Lance's boyfriend?" she asked.

"What?" Keith asked, not because he hadn't heard her but because he both needed a few extra seconds and to be completely sure he had heard right.

"Are you his boyfriend?" she repeated to Keith's dismay. She put a hand on Keith's arm to comfort him but it only made him more tense. "There's no need to be shy I'm just curious since Lance refused to say anything else than the fact that you were coming. Besides, Mamá and papa would probably be glad that he hadn't found someone he could father out of wedlock." She solidified the importance of that option by rubbing her distended stomach.

Keith lost all etiquette he had collected. Maybe because she alluded to it but he still wanted to hit himself after asking, "Are you pregnant?"

She gasped loudly and Keith widened his eyes. Oh, shit.

"I have never…" she exclaimed as if she was a 1800's lady utterly revolted by someone behavior. Which wasn't far from the current state of things and made Keith very nervous.

Keith started to breathe a little quicker and then all her shock stopped as soon as it started. She looked at him with a completely calm expression, eyes content with no deep or wild emotions and lips rising the slightest bit towards the ceiling. "Yes, I am 5 months along. My fiancé is just with his family before we have to pick a family each year."

"Oh, okay, of course," Keith nodded as if he had any reason to personally know such a concept. Well, he knew it in theory but he had literally never been personally affected by it since he didn't know the families of his different foster families that well.

"So, are you his boyfriend," the pregnant woman pried and sent him a look Keith didn't know what meant but was sure meant something he wouldn't like.

"Oh my _god_ , Amanda!" Lance exclaimed from Keith's other side. "Not every person I bring here is my boy- or girlfriend."

The woman, Amanda, put her hands up in the air and widened her eyes as she looked at Lance.

Lance huffed and mumbled into Keith's ear. His breath was warm and almost distracted Keith from hearing the words. "I'm sorry about her and the rest of them."

"You can't blame your sister from assuming when you're whispering into the boy's ear," Lance's mother, Grace, said from the other side of the table. How good were that woman's ears for her to hear it through all the conversations between her and Lance?

"You know Lance's bisexual?" Keith asked when he realized Lance's mother wasn't surprised about something she read as a romantic gesture.

"Yes," Lance's father answered.

"And you're okay with it?" Keith asked because his only experience with being out to one's family was from movies about gay teenagers and the family always were either against the child being gay or at least struggle greatly with it.

"Well," Grace said as she looked at her husband. "It took a few days when the first one came out but if you have a bisexual daughter you might as well have a bisexual son too."

Keith wasn't proud of it but he could already guess who the bisexual daughter was.

"You were lovely about it," Cari said. "Even though you did end up with a son-in-law I'm glad you would have been okay with a daughter-in-law instead." Cari gave a wide smile and kissed her husband on the cheek.

Keith did his best to school his expression. It looked like his bi-dar was worse than his gay-dar. He almost wanted to apologize to Cari and the last sister for assuming that it was the last sister still unnamed in Keith's mind that was the bisexual one. It wasn't like people needed to be married with children at whatever age the sister was. She didn't need to ever have children no matter her sexuality if she never got the urge to do so. Then Keith remembered that all Lance's siblings, even the ones with children, spoiled Lance and Keith secretly decided that all Lance's siblings needed to spoil either their children or their siblings' children instead of Lance. The more married with their own kids to focus on, the better.

Keith looked to the side and saw Lance and Coran giggling about something. Coran really needed to cut the adoration too before Lance got too big a head.

The bisexual talk should have worsened the evening, but it opened Keith weirdly up to the rest of the family and he got the courage to talk to everyone in the room. Even the smallest members though the infant and Caridad's 1-year old son were a lot harder to talk to than their older sisters with their 3 years were.

Lance asked Keith later that evening with surprisingly much subtlety if he wanted to be driven home but Keith honestly didn't want to. He smiled brightly in Lance's direction and Lance soon after gave Keith the biggest smile Keith thought anyone had received when denying something. It was a smile that effected Lance's whole face by closing his eyes halfway up and temporarily giving Lance crow's feet.

Hours passed and Keith was just about to ask Lance for that ride when his phone read 9:43pm and he realized he may have overstayed his visit. He wouldn't go to bed before he was on the other side of midnight but several of Lance's siblings were already looking ready for bed and Coran had yawned a few times in the last hour.

"You're leaving now?" Grace asked when Lance told her he was driving Keith home.

"Yes, I better leave now so you can go to bed," Keith answered and tried to find a way to display both politeness and just a sprinkle of sheepishness in case Grace also thought he had overstayed his visit.

"We can just make a bed for you," she reassured him but it made Keith unsure.

He wanted to say yes but he had been in far too few interactions with different people's parents to know what was a genuine offer and what was just politeness.

Keith looked over at Lance but he couldn't read Lance's even mouth and slightly narrowed eyebrows and narrowed eyes that took all his mother's movements and words in.

Keith turned his eyes back on Grace who was still looking at him.

"No, I better be going." Keith hesitated for a moment. "Thank you for the offer though."

"Of course, Keith," she said and smiled brightly with eyes that reminded Keith of a more motherly version of Lance with brown eyes instead of blue.

Keith and Lance didn't even get to open the door before Grace's voice stopped them. "Would you like to spend New Years here, Keith?"

Keith turned around with furrowed eyebrows and eyes narrowed in disbelieving suspicion. "You want me at New Years?"

"Yes," Grace said with no doubt in her voice or face. Just open affection and a slight desperation. "I would love to have you here, Keith."

Keith that knew that she knew what she was doing. It didn't take a lot to figure out why a boy in his late teens would visit the family of someone who she probably knew hadn't been more than an acquaintance until recently on Christmas Eve of all days, and it didn't take a lot to know what buttons to press when one had that kind of information.

Maybe it was because of that information or maybe it was because of it but Keith's lips grew into a grin as he nodded, "Yes, I would love that."

It was only on the other side of the door that he remembered that maybe Lance wasn't a fan of sharing his family with Keith two days over a week but he didn't need to worry as Lance had a bright smile across his face that grew another level when he noticed Keith looking at him.

* * *

 _Christine BH: Merry Christmas everyone._ _This was not meant to be the least bit Klance-y but the thirst became real really fast and if anyone's interested, I wrote infomation about all Lance's siblings and his parents_

 _GRACIELA 'Grace' - straight - mamá in her mid-late fifties_

 _Ricardo, not Rick because he just don't like the nickname – straight – late fifties_

 _Miguel – straight- start thirties – 3 children. Boy (6), Elena (3), ?-gender (infant)_  
 _Wife Teresa_

 _Caridad 'Cari' – bi- late twenties - 2 children. Girl (3) boy (1)_  
 _Husband – Poul_

 _Jessica – straight - mid- to late twenties – no children and single (and the one Keith assume to be the bi one)_

 _Amanda – mid-twenties – 5 month pregnant_  
 _Fiancé – Stephen 'Steve' but he's at his parent's. Both wanna be home the last Christmas before becoming parents_

 _Patrick –straight – college student 22 years old_

 _Lance – bi - 17 – baby of the family_

 _Also, normally EVERYTHING has been written at least one day before posting so I can read through it without still being 100% in tune with anything but I read through and finished writing this today as I wanted to post it before it was a later date but I didn't want to write while I visited my dad and his girlfriend for Christmas (came home the 25th since Danish Christmas is the 24th)_


End file.
